Hello everyone I wanted to see if we could explore a little further the notion of geographic terms as brands. There’s ample evidence that major cities like Sydney, London, Paris and New York (amongst many others) are well recognised global brands as are important cultural or geographic artifacts like Petra (Jordan), the Taj Mahal (India) and Mt Everest (Nepal). Does it help to think more broadly about the impact this might have on the type of applications geographic/linguistic communities might make for top level domains? Martin Sutton will have much more to contribute on this from the Brand Registry Group’s perspective with respect to the type of contracts registry operators have signed with ICANN as will our intellectual property experts Would it simplify things in the treatment of geographic terms to think about the positive impact of brand status? And would it allow more users to be able to register and use a domain name? For example, going back to the Perth example, a .perth might help anyone who has an interest in “Perths” to register a name and use it as a way of establishing a geographic presence on the Internet that wasn’t necessarily about only “one” location? For a registry operator, it would simplify registration policy without having to demonstrate, for example, an Australian post code with a 6000+ number nexus. Looking forward to hearing more from other colleagues. Liz …. Dr Liz Williams | International Affairs .au Domain Administration Ltd M: +61 436 020 595 | +44 7824 877757 E: liz.williams@auda.org.au<mailto:liz.williams@auda.org.au> www.auda.org.au<http://www.auda.org.au> Important Notice This email may contain information which is confidential and/or subject to legal privilege, and is intended for the use of the named addressee only. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not use, disclose or copy any part of this email. If you have received this email by mistake, please notify the sender and delete this message immediately.